Chennai, 9 Sep

The Madras High Court on Tuesday dismissed with a cost of Rs 1 lakh a Public Interest Litigation petition, which sought a direction to the Election Commission to clarify its position regarding Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's allegation of voter list manipulation.

The first bench comprising Chief Justice MM Shrivatsava and Justice G Arul Murugan dismissed the PIL plea filed by advocate V Venkata Sivakumar.

In his petition, he also sought a direction to the Election Commission to produce before the court and make available in the public domain the relevant electoral roll data for all constituencies in machine readable format, together with a detailed status report of all actions' inquiries, audits, and measures undertaken in response to these allegations, to uphold transparency, public confidence, and the constitutional mandate of free and fair elections.

Pointing out that a petition relating to the voters' list was pending before the Supreme Court, the bench said this PIL has been filed for publicity and dismissed it.